In addition to the ingredients that are indispensable for the washing process, such as surfactants and builder materials, detergents generally contain further components which may be combined under the term “washing aids” and which include such different active ingredient groups as foam regulators, anti-redeposition agents, bleaching agents, bleach activators, and dye transfer inhibitors. These types of aids also include substances whose presence enhances the detergency of surfactants, without the nReed in general for these substances themselves to have pronounced surfactant behavior. This similarly also applies to cleaning agents for hard surfaces. Such substances are often referred to as detergency enhancers.
The use of poly-(N-vinylpyrrolidone) in detergents is known. For example, International Patent application WO 2011/001173 A1 describes liquid detergents which contain 0.01 to 5% by weight cellulase and 0.01 to 5% by weight poly-(N-vinylpyrrolidone) and/or the salt thereof, and have an average molecular weight of 20,000 g/mol to 60,000 g/mol.
Crosslinked polymers composed of 10 to 50% by weight N-vinyl caprolactam and 50 to 90% by weight N-vinylpyrrolidone are known from International Patent application WO 97/29139 A1, which may be prepared in the presence of 0.5 to 7% by weight of a crosslinker, which may also be 1-vinyl-3(E)-ethylidene pyrrolidone produced in situ. Such crosslinked polymers as described therein are suitable for filtering polyphenols from beer.
The soil release effect of N-vinyl caprolactam homopolymers and copolymers having small quantities of other monomers, for example N-vinylpyrrolidone, is known from European Patent application EP 0 181 204 A2. It is known from European Patent application EP 0 181 205 A2 that such polymers may also be applied as coating materials to fibers, in particular made of polyester, to achieve the soil release effect.
Detergents are known from US Patent application US 2002/0177542 which contain a quantity of N-vinyl caprolactam homopolymer having a soil release and fabric-softening effect, and a K value of at least 40.
International Patent application WO 2004/014326 A1 describes anionic surfactant-containing shampoos which contain silicone derivatives having amino and hydroxy groups, and which contain water-soluble cationic polymers having an average molecular weight of 100,000 g/mol to 2,000,000 g/mol and charge densities of 0.6 to 4 meq/g, wherein N-vinylpyrrolidone/alkylamino acrylate/N-vinyl caprolactam copolymers, among others, are named; and which are used therein due to their conditioning effect.
It has surprisingly been found that certain copolymers of N-vinylpyrrolidone which increase the surface tension of aqueous anionic surfactant solutions have particularly good properties which enhance the primary detergency.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.